There has been plenty of cicada talk here in the midwest concerning the 17 year cicada. The news covered weddings being rescheduled, teachers at school were making “cicada hats” with their students to try and lessen the scariness of the bugs, and of course, the great Walter E. Smithe commercial. No sign of the bugs yet, but I did want to share the insane commercial for a local furniture chain. Yes – furniture. These guys have a great sense of humor!
Archive for May, 2007
All posts written in May, 2007.
May
29
2007
cool button maker.
If you are in need of som quick and easy Web 2.0ish looking buttons, check out: My Cool Buttons. Nice work!
May
28
2007
get serious about backups.
If there is one thing I cannot stand more than anything when it comes to computer support – it is failure to have a backup strategy. If you have pictures, email, documents, music, videos, etc that you consider valuable – do something about it. There are many ways to easily backup your personal data and I wanted to throw out another option if you are not using a remote backup system: Jungle Disk.
With Jungle Disk, you can easily, cheaply (15¢ per gigabyte), and securely transfer and store your data using Amazon.com’s S3 â„¢ Storage Service. I have all my data backed up to a 500 gigabyte FireWire external drive every night, but if something were to happen to my house, or my computer/drive was stolen – I am left with nothing. Knowing all my pictures, documents, music, and anything else I really need or want is available off site makes me sleep easier – and it will for you too.
Never had a drive failure or any data loss? You will – so you might as well prepare now.
May
23
2007
debugging web site/database lessons.
After spending a frustrating day yesterday working with a client, their web site overload issues, and the hosting “advanced support” I am worn out. The issue: extremely high traffic database driven web site – when moved into the production environment on a dedicated server – would spike the processors’ load to 100% and would then need to be restarted. I got called to help solve the problem. The “advanced support” blamed it on the CMS and that is where I stepped in. The first thing I wanted to see were the server logs. (Apache and MySQL to start) After a long and frustrating time on the phone with the “advanced support” they were finally convinced I knew what I was talking about and gave me shell access to the server so I could tail (tail -f logname_log) the log in order to see what kind of error messages were generated. Mind you – my client had been dealing with the “advanced support” for two days at this point and not once did they look at the log files. Within a few seconds I was able to see the errors that were causing Apache and MySQL to run out of control and within a short while, I had a solution.
The lesson here – and it seems like I have tried to get this across many times before – if you are experiencing server issues of any kind – DNS, email, web, database – always check the logs first. The log files will either tell you what is wrong right away, or give you something to search for on your search engine of choice. The other lesson of the day: if you are have a content management system that uses a lot of database queries on a very busy site – make sure you you are using some sort of caching. (such as the MySQL Query Cache)
May
22
2007
Adobe Web UI
I have not spent a lot of time on the Adobe web site since the Adobe/Macromedia meld. I have to say – after just spending 10 minutes on the Adobe web site (buying Photoshop CS3), I am very disappointed with their layout and their implementation of the layout. There were numerous spots where the menus did not load for several seconds (longer than other web sites), text was cut off, and during page load – elements were just really ugly. Yes – this happens sometimes, but I expected a lot more from Adobe. On top of this, the font looks horrible and like something that would have been ok on Windows but not on a Mac and not from the type king Adobe. My Adobe experience was very disappointing.
An example of the cut off, ugly text in the store (look at “Sign In” and “Welcome”):
May
21
2007
Ninja Warrior Marathon
I am not sure if anyone else caught the Ninja Warrior but I was pretty worthless between that and having out of town guest here (who I also made them watch it too). This show contains so many great qualities: impossible obstacles, stories of the competitors and one really excited announcer. I am so happy I found this show!
May
17
2007
working with colors.
Picking a color scheme for a web site is one of the most important and possibly the most frustrating part of creating new designs – at least for me. I have been recently using Adobe’s Kuler as well as a handful of other color web sites. I can usually get the first two out of three colors without any issue but the accent color always gets me. I usually end up surfing some sites and “accidentally” find the third color I need. Why bring this up? This is the big reason I have not been very active on my blog this week. I have three “from scratch” designs I am working on for clients and have been busy piecing colors together. Anyone have any color resources they want to share, please leave a comment.
May
14
2007
new cms to consider: drupal.
I have worked with a number of content management systems over the years and have never been so impressed – and able to use something out of the box – as I was with Drupal 5.x. A prospective client of mine a short while ago mentioned something about Drupal and I had not used it since the last major upgrade. After installing it and using it for 20 minutes, I became very impressed. Drupal is the most elegant CMS I have ever used and the most “clean”. By clean, I mean very organized (file structure and Admin area). I also believe that Drupal is the most feature rich and easy to use CMS out of the box. At this point, I am going to drop all XOOPS development and move any new clients to either WordPress or Drupal. Nice work Drupal!
May
11
2007
Land Rover Anniversary
It has officially been one year since we bought our Land Rover. Did I write this down? No. Land Rover sent us an “anniversary” present in the mail with a card. We got a very classy box with a card, a $2,000 off coupon for a new Range Rover (thanks – that should cover the floor mats) and a Land Rover duffle bag. I am continually impressed with the service and thoughtfulness of this company.
May
10
2007
css tips and howtos from w3c.
I have been very busy working on CSS for a big up and coming web site and I have spent the last few nights doing some research on best practices and came across a W3C site I used when I first started coding with CSS that is very useful. There are a number of tips and howtos for the very things you think should be “easy” when laying out a page…and that your clients always want like:
If you are just starting out with CSS or are looking for some help with something you *think* should be simple, spend some time at the W3C Web Style Sheets CSS tips & tricks web site.
